


The Hobbit and the King

by LeastExpected_Archivist



Series: Remembrance [6]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-04
Updated: 2002-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:46:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26442919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeastExpected_Archivist/pseuds/LeastExpected_Archivist
Summary: by UluithielSam unburdens his heart to Strider
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel/Sam Gamgee, Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee
Series: Remembrance [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922128
Kudos: 2
Collections: Least Expected





	The Hobbit and the King

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Amy Fortuna, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Least Expected](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Least_Expected), which has been offline since 2002. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Least Expected collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/leastexpected/profile).
> 
> Disclaimer: I lay claim on neither Hobbit nor King; only the situation I have put them in  
> Story Notes: I want you to know that the kiss was *not* my idea! Sam *insisted*!

11 May 1419 (in the Shire reckoning)  
In the Citadel of the Guard

> ". . . they are Periannath, out of the far country of the Halflings, where they are princes of great fame, it is said."  
>  _RotK_ p 244

"Frodo? You've hardly eaten a bite!"

Frodo's voice was sharp. "I'm alright, Sam. I'm just not very hungry tonight. I think I'll take a walk in the City."

"Would you like me to come along?" Sam tried not to nag, but Frodo's black moods and isolation were an ongoing worry.

"I said I'm alright, Sam!" Frodo snapped. "Stop fussing me!" He turned on his heel and left the dining hall abruptly.

Legolas' sea-blue eyes were thoughtful as he watched the Ringbearer's departure. As if by a sudden decision, the Elf rose lithely and followed Frodo from the hall. Sam gave a little sigh of relief. He was still not fully accustomed to the idea that Frodo was no longer in constant danger. And he preferred that Frodo not be alone when he was in thrall to his Darkness.

He saw Frodo, with Legolas following, walk north from the buttery, so he headed south, towards the Place of the Fountain. As he walked his lips thinned and his steps became brisker, more clipped. Finally he dropped heavily onto a bench and clutched his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his hair. He could manage being anxious over Frodo, but being angry with him was excruciating. Sam pounded his fists on his knees.

When the voice spoke at his side he almost jumped out of his skin.

I don't believe I've seen you this angry since our first meeting, Sam." The figure was seated beside Sam on the bench. Grey eyes gleamed in the moonlight, but the rest of the long body was in shadow under a dark cloak.

Sam smiled delightedly, fury forgotten in the pleasure of remembrance. "Strider! If you don't look the picture of how you looked that night in the Prancing Pony!"

Aragorn laughed. "Yes, Sam, Strider. It is a long way, is it not, from Bree, where you did not like the look of me?" The fine eyes softened. "Perhaps you now trust me enough to talk about what's happening to you? You're suffering, Sam."

"Me suffering? Not as much as Fro. . ."

Aragorn raised a hand, interrupting him. "I know Frodo suffers. His suffering is very evident, and of great concern to me. But tonight it is _your_ suffering that is in my heart."

Sam sighed. Aragorn's compassion was soothing to his frayed temper, and he felt it would be a comfort to say the things in his heart to this wise and true friend.

"I just don't know what to do with him," Sam began tiredly. "One night he'll be alright, then the next he'll be distracted and distant, then another he'll be that irritable and touchy. I just don't know how to help him.

"When we were on the Journey it was simpler, somehow. All I needed to worry about was food, and water, and keeping him alive and moving toward Mount Doom. There was always something I could _do_. I could find water for him, or carry him on my back, or wrap him in my cloak against the cold. Now it's much harder. He's safe now, from the Orcs and Black Riders at least, and for that I'm grateful. But it seems like now there's nothing I can _do_ for him. And that's hard."

Aragorn looked with love at the deceptively small figure beside him. "Perhael who should be called Panthael," he murmured tenderly. Sam looked puzzled. "Perhael is 'Samwise', but your name should be 'Panthael', which means 'Fullwise'," the King explained with a smile.

Sam blushed. "I don't know about that," he said. "It's upsetting, having everyone take on so over me."

"Would that we could 'take on over you' as much as you deserve, Samwise Gamgee." Aragorn laughed, a ringing sound of joy. "Hobbits truly are amazing creatures. Gandalf has always told me that I underestimate them. I spent years guarding the Shire without fully recognizing their mettle. Frodo taught me some after the attack on Amon Sul, when I saw his resistance to the Morgul-wound, but even as we left Rivendell I was still caught up in thinking of hobbits as . . . well, as small." He leaned forward and kissed Sam on the forehead. "You are _not_ small, Samwise Gamgee. And I would that I could give you a reward in keeping with the gifts you have given me, given all of Middle Earth."

"The only reward I want is Frodo!" Sam's cry was squeezed from his tight chest. "Will he ever be better, Strider? He's in so much pain. And yet it don't seem like _enough_ pain, if you follow me. He brings more pain upon himself." Sam's eyes dropped, and the blood surged into his brown cheeks. "He. . . he hurts me sometimes. At night. And he wants me to hurt him."

"And do you?" Aragorn's voice was calm and even, seeking information only.

"Of course not! I couldn't! All I want in the world is for him _not_ to be hurt!" Sam's eyes began to well. "Why does he look for more pain? Oh, Strider, he's been through so much! That last day on the slopes of the Mountain, he couldn't even crawl. I had to carry him on my back! And then when Gollum attacked him -- his poor hand! He's had such a cruel time!"

"And what about you, Sam," asked the Ranger. "How cruel has this been for you?"

"That don't matter," said Sam stoutly. "Anything I've been through is small compared to what Frodo has suffered. But I'm afraid. . ."

"Afraid?" murmured Aragorn encouragingly.

"Afraid he'll leave me!" Sam burst out. "I don't know . . . I keep thinking he may go away, like old Mr. Bilbo. Go away to live with the elves or something."

Aragorn stirred but said nothing.

"And I've nothing without him!" Sam's voice was desolate.

Aragorn put his arm about the hobbit and drew him close. For a long moment Sam let his head rest on the Man's breast, listening to the slow steady beat of his heart, comforted by its rhythm and the King's compassion. Then Aragorn pulled from his jerkin two pipes and a small pouch of pipeweed. He offered one pipe to Sam, who took it gratefully, and they settled back companionably on the bench. The lights of the City twinkled below them, concentric circles of life, as they looked away over the Hill of Guard. At length Aragorn spoke.

"Frodo will never be the same hobbit you knew back in the Shire," he said.

Sam shook his head impatiently. "Of course not," he said. "None of us are the same as we were then, nor ever will be, I reckon. We've seen too much and done too much. . .and been too much." He looked at the King next to him. "The same goes for you, my Lord. You may _look_ like the Strider we met in Bree, but you aren't that man anymore."

"No, indeed," mused Aragorn. "No, indeed. And it is thanks to you that I am not." Seeing Sam blush again, he said, "But I won't burden you with more of the praise you so richly merit. I will return to the reward you asked for; which I have not the power to give, alas!

"The Burden that Frodo bore so long has eroded his strength, Sam. Yet even that I feel he could overcome, so strong is his spirit. The thing that truly poisons his heart is Cirith Ungol."

Sam flinched at the name. "Will I ever forgive myself?" he whispered. "Leaving him laying there and letting those Orcs get him. Never, never, never leave your Master! That was my rule! And I broke my rule, and now. . ." Sam's voice cracked with a sob, "now it's breaking _him_."

Sam's face was stark with agonized memory. "When I left him laying there under the cliff, dead as I believed, I thought that was the blackest moment of my life. I knew that all the Light was gone from the world, and that I would walk in the darkness forever after.

"But then the Orc company came and found him, and that was worse; much worse. The stories of what Orcs do . . . it wasn't to be borne, that's all. I would have thrown away the Quest, the Ring . . . I knew it would ruin everything, but I couldn't help it. My place was with him. I had to go after him, if only to keep his body from being. . ." Sam's voice failed. He drew several deep breaths.

"Well. Then I heard them Orcs talking among themselves and learned that Frodo was _alive_." Sam shuddered at the remembrance, his eyes wide with horror. "And that was the worst of all. I felt such joy like I had never known, then such agony and oh! such horror that I like to swooned. I had left him! Left him alone and helpless! Left him to those foul Orcs!"

Sam's sobs tore through his words, but he continued.

"It was forever, forever before I found him. I had near given up. I got to the top of the Tower, to a dead end, and I couldn't find him, not anywhere! I sat down and a song came to me unbidden-like. But then I heard _his_ voice! The singing in the Blessed Realm can't be no sweeter.

"Then the Orc came and put the ladder up and I saw the turret room. I ran up the ladder and saw that Orc raising a whip over Frodo and. . ." Sam's eyes blazed. "I slashed him with Sting, and tripped over my own feet doing it, but he fell down through the trap door and killed hisself, curse the filth. And then I saw Frodo.

"Oh! Strider! He was beaten and broken, and his blood was. . . oh, what they had done to him! I took him in my arms, and I think I would have been perfectly happy to spend the rest of my life sitting on that filthy floor in that foul Orc's den, just holding Frodo in my arms."

Aragorn let Sam weep for several minutes, his silent understanding soothing the distraught hobbit. The King's eyes looked far, over the City, beyond the City Wall. Mount Mindolluin rose, black and forbidding, to his right. Yet the slope beckoned him somehow.

"Have you ever loved another, Sam?" he asked.

"Nay, not since first I met him," choked Sam. "I was but a child, and he was so tall and fair and lovely! I followed him around like a puppy, but he tolerated it -- why I can't think. I must have been an almighty nuisance to him, but he never seemed to mind.

"But I couldn't let him know how I felt. I was his servant, and it's the duty of a servant to care for his Master, not to. . ." Sam blushed. "Well, I just knew that even thinking of Mr. Frodo in that way was putting myself above my station.

"I had begun to think about getting married. It's in the normal way of things, after all. Rosie Cotton is a likely lass, and she favors me, seemingly. Even when I made plans to go with Mr. Frodo on this Journey, I was still thinking I would wed with Rosie when I returned. But . . . well, Frodo and I came to declaring ourselves to each other. At Rivendell, it was." Sam's face was lit with memory.

"The night of the Council, if I'm not mistaken," said Aragorn, smiling.

Sam looked up startled. "How did you know? Did Frodo. . ."

"My very dear Sam," laughed Aragorn. "You and Frodo were glowing brighter than Gandalf's fireworks. It was very obvious to everyone who knows you what had happened. And it was joy to everyone who knows you to see your bliss."

Sam forgot his embarrassment. Aragorn's tone was amused but fond: no teasing, and certainly no censure. "There could never be anyone for me but him," he said dreamily.

Suddenly Aragorn was angry, angry at the fate that gave such suffering to Sam. This magnificent person deserved happiness, not more pain. He never knew what impulse moved him, but swiftly he turned and took Sam into his arms.

Sam saw the grey eyes looming over him, the chiseled lips very close to his own. The smallest movement would bring their mouths together.

Sam made that movement.

As their lips touched, a feverish shock coursed through them, startling them both. They broke apart, but then, languidly, Sam's eyes drifted closed. Gliding his hand up to cradle the back of Aragorn's head, he pulled the Man's lips back to his and drank of them deeply. He savoured the taste of pipeweed; reveled in the unfamiliar chafe of bearded chin. So different! yet like, somehow.

It was several minutes before Sam broke the kiss again. "I think. . ." he had to stop and clear his throat before he could continue. "I'm thinking we shouldn't be taking this any farther, Strider, if you take my meaning."

Aragorn's laugh was a bit unsteady, and his voice husky. "Then I believe we should stop right now. Sam . . . I'm sorry . . ."

Sam grinned. "Nay, I'll wager you're not, begging your pardon. Nor am I." His face changed, became thoughtful. "'Tis refreshing to know that I can still be stirred by another. A relief, it is, in a way. But a worry, too, if you follow me."

"Yes," said Aragorn softly. "Yes, I know what you mean. But . . . . Sam!"

Sam looked at his bemused face and suddenly he couldn't help grinning. "Now here you are underestimating hobbits again, is that it?"

"No! I mean . . .I think. . ." Aragorn's eyes lit with delight. "You're right, Sam!" The King's laugh rang out across the Courtyard. "Gandalf was right -- as usual - and so are you, my dear Panthael. I am indeed still underestimating hobbits."

He leaned over and kissed Sam swiftly on the mouth, and the levity was gone from his tone. "You are a diamond, Samwise Gamgee. Yet I mourn for both of my beloved Ringbearers. My heart tells me that Frodo may never be fully healed. And with the wounds he carries, I fear he cannot return your love as you deserve."

Sam's eyes still glowed with the heat of their kisses, but his voice was sad. "Aye, I can't deny I've feared that myself at times. But any way else wouldn't be in the right of things. My belonging to Frodo is what's meant to be. I love him, whether or no."

the end

> _though the future's there for anyone to change still you know it seems_   
>  _it would be easier sometimes_   
>  _to change the past_
> 
> Joan Baez Fountain of Sorrow


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